Actually I'm in two minds. Either to sue Microsoft for stress or wash their feet.

I installed the .NET 4 framework this afternoon without issue (some software wanted it) and then Windows Update prompted me to install two updates for it. No problem, I thought, but it became apparent that one of them had hung during the update and Stop Installation didn't appear to be doing anything either with no use of CPU time at all. So I decided to shut down the computer and that hung as well with a message generated by Windows Update telling me not to remove power...

Well, I finally lost patience and hit the reset button. Windows booted up just fine and even prompted me to install the same two updates. I then probably outsmarted myself and did a System Restore to the point before the failed updates. Windows did the restore and rebooted and then told me it couldn't start.

It then spent some considerable time trying to automatically repair itself. Tick, v.g. I thought. Except that it then announced it couldn't repair itself, asked if it could report the problem and then it shut down the computer after I had told it that it could do the reporty bit.

That's the stress part. Quite put me off my dinner. After I had got some other chores out of the way I switched the computer back on again, being mentally prepared for Safe Mode or even inserting a W7 disk and trying a repair that way.
Stap me but Windows started normally.

I did a couple of CHKDSK runs on my two hard drives and no problems were reported. After which I installed the four, yes it was four now, requested Windows Updates one by one with Task Manager running so I could monitor in detail.

That Windows isn't broken does generate vague stirrings of pedicuristic cleanliness but I don't think I'll get my flannel out just yet.

I'm not sure what the moral is here. Maybe if I'd gone away and ignored the computer for an hour or two the original Windows Update installation would have completed normally. It certainly seems true that some updates take longer than the time needed to calculate pi to 50 trillion decimal places, for what reason I have no idea. Well, OK - perhaps not 50...

If that was the worst stress I experienced from a windows box I'd be very happy.

Not even a week ago, the server I set up crashed out of nowhere, one day before it was to be shipped across the world. One full day +4 hours overtime later I got it up and running again, and I still don't know what caused it to fail.

Also, the backup would fail because the VSS service failed, because Sharepoint downloaded some updates, but didn't install them because they would break too much. Still pondering the design decision behind that.....

_________________I take pictures so quickly, my highschool was "Continuous High".